News Article

Speed Pedelec Sales Doubling in Holland

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – First indications prove that speed pedelecs (also called high speed e-bikes) will become highly popular. In the first four months of this year sales in The Netherlands are doubling. But also less favourable business trends are appearing on the horizon…

In particular the number of sold Riese&Müller and Specialized speed pedelecs point to a fast growing popularity of speed pedelecs in The Netherlands.

As speed pedelecs need to carry a license plate in Holland (as well as in many other EU countries) they are subject to registration. This means that sales can easily be tracked like for cars, motorcycles and mopeds. In the sales overviews for 25 km/h mopeds, speed pedelecs are now appearing. And indications are there that compared to 2013, sales are doubling.

Riese & Müller and Specialized

In particular the number of sold Riese&Müller and Specialized speed pedelecs point to a fast growing popularity of speed pedelecs in The Netherlands. The VWE monitor for registered 25km/h mopeds show that license plates were issued for 82 sold Riese&Müller speed pedelecs in the first four months of 2014. In the whole year of 2013 the same number of Riese&Müller speed pedelecs were sold.

Fast growing sales

The number of Specialized Turbo speed pedelecs sold present the same signs of fast growing sales. Up to April 2014 a total number of 30 were sold compared to 66 in the whole year of 2013.

Illegal practices

The Dutch government institutions handling registrations and license plates for the high speed e-bikes are sure of the fact that in reality more speed pedelecs are sold in Holland in the first four months of the year.

A spokesperson said: “There are indications that these vehicles are also sold simply as an e-bike without registration and license plate. We have no view on the extensity of this practice so we do not know exactly how many speed pedelecs have been sold and are currently driving around.” Selling non-approved speed pedelecs as a regular e-bike is illegal in Holland.